This is one of those events where I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s see here. We were invited down again for the entire weekend, Friday and Saturday, but because we all have jobs we were only able to go for Saturday so the band could play, but we did leave Friday night to head down early since Dogfish Head had hooked us up with a hotel room for the weekend. This year the rooms were in the Brighton Suites which is where we stayed last NYE and this coming one also. It’s funny, the rooms are never in the same hotel two years in a row, I wonder what that says about the bocce teams. When we got to the room it was probably close to 10PM, and after checking everything out discovered that there were two 4-packs of DFH Palo Santo Marron beer in the fridge – shweet! So we cracked a beer a piece and then went on down to the brewpub, about three blocks away or so and chilled out for a while.

When Saturday came we all hopped in the van and went on over to the brewery in Milton, about a 30 minute drive. We showed up at just about noon and started unloading the equipment. This year DFH had two tents set-up outside and they had kind of reserved one of them for the band, really cool. So after the band was set-up and sound-checked they began their first of four sets. Each set was probably about an hour and fifteen minutes, so it was about five hours of playing interspersed with beer breaks, including 60 Minute, Black & Blue, and World Wide Stout. While the band was playing I mostly just hung out with the freaks and watched bocce, but as more and more teams dropped out of the tournament (double elimination) there was more and more stuff to do. By the end we had my Cornhole set set-up in the brewery and had almost a mini Cornhole tournament going on.

Some of the other side stuff DFH had set-up this year to keep everyone entertained was a graffiti contest with sidewalk chalk, a breakdancing competition, and a very heated costume contest. In the past all the teams had themes and most of them wore costumes, but it had started to get a little lax with teams just wearing like T-shirts with their team names on them and stuff. So supposedly in the email that went out to the teams they stressed that it was going to be much more important this year to roll with their themes, and boy did some of the teams bring it. Some of the team names I can remember are: El Borracho Mariachi (mariachi theme), Beer Junta (army theme?), Bocce Beer Monks (monks), Mama’s Roast Beef (purple freaks), Alpha Males (Jimmy Buffet), Midas Touch My Balls (old guys), Bonsai Bocce (Karate Kid), Holy Rollers (religious figures), Pallino Pimps (pimps), Punkin Drublic (pumpkin/punks), Catbird Ass Brewery (chicken chokers?), Don’t Touchdown There (Eagles), and Sam’s Team (Village People). The freakin’ old guys from MTMB were ridiculous. Not only were they in costumes, but they were in full character, especially two of them. They had gone so far as to shave the tops of their heads so they looked like old guys with major receding hair lines and wore Depends adult diapers – they were just out of control.

At one point the band had sent out an email saying if any of the teams were interested in requesting a song that they would take it into consideration and see what they could do. They received one email back with one request. The Bonsai Bocce team requested any song from the Karate Kid movies. The Erik Mitchell Band thought it was great and went through the effort to learn Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best Around“. It’s so funny, this song keeps getting stuck in my head ever since they learned it. They did a great job pulling it off in there own way, and everyone at the bocce tournament loved it. It was funny to later on hear people singing it. The band also did the 2008 version of the Bocce Song which is basically an off-the-cuff song Mitchell pulls out of his ass which is freakin’ hilarious. This year he basically gave props to Audrey (the person who organizes the tournament) and then systematically went through each team and several individual players and ripped them. It might sound a little mean, but he does it in good humor and everyone is laughing, so I think all are on the same page.

Near the end of the tournament the band was just wrapping up their fourth set when the cops showed it. It was pretty funny to see Sam walk down to talk to the cop wearing his tight Village People police outfit talking to the real cop. Basically from what I can gather the cops came on a noise complaint because of the band, but he was cool and let the band play one more song. So, for their final song they played “Every Rose Has a Thorn” and invited up anyone who would like to sing along (see above photo). It was too funny seeing everyone singing along, pimps, Jebus, old dudes, monks, Eagles, the band – too funny. After that we packed up the band gear and put the van and gear away for the night. It was just in time to watch the last two games of bocce between Sam’s Team and the Bonsai Bocce crew. Sam’s Team actually beat Bonsai Bocce twice in a row (remember, double elimination), so theoretically they were the winners, but Sam announced that they would not accept the awards (four cases of vintage DFH beer) and gave them to Bonsai Bocce and basically pimped the praises of Bonsai Bocce all night. After that we all loaded into two buses and went back to the brewpub for dinner and the awards ceremony.

To say what I tried to describe is just the tip-of-the-iceberg is about all I can say. Go through the pictures, read the set list, watch the videos – this weekend is simply retarded in the best way possible. And I think as long as there isn’t any trouble that follows from the police showing up, I think the band (and me) will be invited back next year for the five year anniversary. This is my favorite beer event that I get to participate in every year.

If you want to check out more on the band go to Erik’s MySpace page here. There is plenty of band information plus if you look on the left side where he posts his set lists you can see the full scoop of what they played. There is also a video of the band playing “You’re the Best Around” on his page or here. Also, the “Unofficial Dogfish Head Photographer” Jess Daleiden was kind enough to forward links to the pictures she took and has given me permission to post links to her photos. So if you want to see a couple hundred good photos and not just my crappy drunken ones, then here are the Friday pictures and the Saturday pictures from Jess, thank you!

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on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Beer, Side Trip.
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